


See you later

by Ibijau



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Gen, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, canon character death, soulmate mark: last words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-27
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2018-03-15 13:00:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3448097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ibijau/pseuds/Ibijau
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ori is ten the first time he reads the mark on his wrist, spelling the last words his One will say to him.<br/>Ori is ten, and the fear is just starting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey, so, this is Tagath, under a new pseudo and all. explanations for that at the end!

Ori stared down at the three dark words written in neat little letters on his wrist. He'd never been too curious about them before, because his amad had said he shouldn't worry about them until he was older, and she was always right. Only, he was older now. Much older. He was very nearly ten, which he felt meant he was almost an adult. After all, he could count past thirty, and he could read most letters.

He certainly could read all the ones on his wrist, and they said “see you later”.

Which was an odd thing to have written on your own skin, but then again, Ori was aware that such marks could be very odd. He'd managed to decipher Nori's some days before, and it said “be careful this time”, which was just as bad as his own.

“What does mine say?” Karan asked, bringing Ori back to reality.

Karan was taller than Ori, and a bit older too, but he could read while she could not, and her family, like Ori's, didn't believe it was good to tell children what their mark said.

Ori had been very busy these last few days, reading marks for all of his friends who couldn't do it yet.

“It says 'don't forget the eggs',” Ori told Karan, and she grimaced in answer.

“My cousin has 'mind the orc',” she complained with a cute pout. “That's a lot more heroic than this!”

Ori shrugged. “What are these for anyway?” he asked. “Grown ups won't tell me...”

All of Karan's bad mood disappeared in an instant, now that she was the one holding knowledge and power. She smiled as if it were all terribly obvious, which should have been annoying, but she was pretty enough that Ori didn't really mind.

“They are the dwarves' curse, everyone knows that,” she explained proudly. “All other races can know their One's first words to them, but dwarves only get to know the lasts, that's what it is.”

Ori frowned. “Why are we cursed?”

“I don't know,” Karant admitted. “Maybe the Seven Elders refused to finish their greens one day, and so the maker got very angry and he punished them like that? Amad always gets so angry like that if I don't eat my cabbage, even if it stinks awful.”

That was a fair explanation, and so Ori accepted it, but there was more to be curious about.

“What's a One then?”

Karan hesitated a little more this time.

“I think... it's your favourite person in the world. The one that makes you smile and be happy always. And sometimes it's someone you're in love with, and sometimes it's your very best friend, or a sibling that you love a lot lot lot... and when they die, then you are never, ever happy ever again. Which is why it's so terrible to only know that this was your important person when one of you are going to never see them again, right?”

Ori nodded slowly, feeling something cold inside of him that twisted in his belly. He hadn't felt like that since that time Nori had come home all covered in blood and they'd had to call a doctor for him. He'd heard Dori tell their amad that Nori might not make it, and then Ori had felt that same sort of sickening cold.

“I think it must have been something bigger than not eating the greens that cursed dwarves,” he said slowly. “Because that's really an awful thing to have.”

“You think maybe they took somebody's doll and tore its head?” Karan asked.

“Something even worse,” Ori replied, and his friend gasped.

Karan had a little brother, and had gotten in terrible trouble when she'd done that to his favourite doll. Her amad has slapped her that day, and so she had decided that breaking dolls was the most terrible crime in the world. She could not conceive anything worse than that, and in all honesty, neither could Ori.

“Maybe it was an elf's doll,” Karan eventually suggested. “There's always curses and bad things with elves, my adad says.”

That made sense, of course, so Ori didn't insist. Still, he wasn't in much of a mood to play after that terrible discovery, so he decided to go home and see if any of Dori's books talked about that. They had too many words for Ori to read them easily, but this felt important enough to try anyway.

“As you like,” Karan grumbled, before kissing his cheek. “See you later!”

She dashed away before Ori could see her blush or try to get another kiss but he remained frozen where he was.

It took him several minutes to realise that he hadn't said anything about eggs, and so he would see Karan again for certain, but he still broke into tears.

He was still crying by the time he finally got home, but neither Dori nor their amad could get him to explain what had happened.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, so. You might have noticed that nearly all my old fanfics have been orphaned. And I've changed my username.  
> The thing is, I am dealing with depression, and it sometimes gets bad. And the last time it got bad, I deleted my tumblr, and nearly did the same to my AO3 account (the only reason I didn't was that even then, I realised that making a new AO3 account would be a lot more difficult than making a new tumblr account)  
> During the past year, writing has felt less and less like a pleasure, and more and more like a chore. One I was bad at. Nothing I could write would satisfy me, and I felt like I was disappointing all the people who were reading my stuff. It also didn't help that I couldn't get any ideas at all. I'd given up on writing... until this fic started happening.  
> I can't promise I'll finish it. It probably won't be very long, and it certainly won't be very artful.  
> But I'm gonna try, and I hope I'll have fun doing it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ori is scared for Nori

Nori was home, and that was great.

Of course, it meant that Dori was a little grumpy, but he also laughed more easily, and their amad no longer seemed so worried all the time. Beside, Nori always brought home money which meant better food, and he never forgot to bring presents for Ori.

It was wonderful when Nori was home.

He always had amazing stories to tell, too. Stories of faraway places, where dwarves' skin wasn't pinkish, where the great mines of gold and gems where still full, and where food could sometimes burn you more than fire.

“Slip some of this in somebody's plate,” Nori told his little brother, slipping a small pouch in his hand, “if they bother you... and I can promise you they'll never cause trouble again.”

“Don't give him ideas,” Dori grumbled. “He doesn't need you to get in trouble.”

“I kicked Porim in the shin last week!” Ori said proudly.

“And why did you do that?”

“Because he said I wouldn't dare,” Ori explained, still very proud of himself. “He still had a bruise you know. A big one, and it's all purple and yellow. I think it's pretty, but Dori said that I'm not supposed to like how bruises look.”

Nori laughed, and for all that he tried to scowl, Dori chuckled too. Only their amad rolled her eyes, because she was the one who'd had to deal with Porim's parents. She had punished him a little, too, but Ori had gotten a relaxed attitude toward that in the past few months. Compared to only knowing who your One was when you were going to lose them, most punishment felt rather tame.

Beside, he was almost certain that she was proud of him too, because she always said that it was important that her sons stood their ground. Indeed, she laughed when Nori made his little brother tell the whole tale, and laughed again when her two eldest sons explained to their brother how to do it better next time, along with ways to not get caught again.

It was so much fun to have Nori at home again.

* * *

 

What was less fun, of course, was that Nori never stayed long.

* * *

 

It was easy to know when Nori was about to leave again. He never said it, and even denied it when asked, but Ori still knew. It was the way Nori would start patching up his clothes, sewing small gems and coins into the linings, the way he would buy as much biscuits as ever but no longer share them. He also always bought dried beef, which he only got when he had to travel; he hated the taste, but it was an easy way to have meat no matter where he went.

The beef was always the last step. So when Nori came home with dried meat one afternoon, Ori knew.

He stayed up that night, fighting sleep as hard as he could, pulling on his hair every time his eyes started to close. Ori had a plan, and for it, he needed to see Nori go.

Since Karan had explained to him what Ones were, Ori had done a lot of research. That had mostly meant asking every kid of the neighbourhood what they knew about Ones and marks. He hadn't asked adults. They couldn't be trusted to give an honest answer on such a subject. In the end, what he had learned was that no one really could explain what Ones were, nor whether they could be of your own blood or not. Cousins had been mentioned a couple times, and everyone seemed to have heard of siblings, but it was always just hearsay, and Ori was clever enough not to trust that too much. He was still very much scared though.

If anyone had asked him, Ori would have said he loved all of his families all the same, because he knew that was the answer grown ups wanted to hear, and that kids would tease him if he said anything else. But the truth was that, much as he loved Dori and their amad, his favourite was really Nori, who always made him laugh and brought present and praised him on everything. And Nori was living a dangerous life whenever he wasn't home.

Ori didn't understand much about Ones, but what he did get was that he just couldn't take any risks.

So he waited in his room, patiently listening to the darkness, until he finally hears Nori's almost silent steps on the stairs. Ori dashed out of his room, and ran after his brother.

“Please don't go!” he shouted, right as Nori's hand closed on the door's handle. “Please, stay here! It's nice here, isn't it?”

“Shouldn't you be sleeping?” Nori retorted with a smile, putting down his bag. “Mam will have a fit if she hears you're still up.”

Ori pouted, very tempted to point out that Nori too was up. He didn't though. He knew that this would just end up with a very annoying 'I'm older than you I can do these things' and he didn't want to get angry at Nori. Not that night.

“Why do you always leave?” Ori protested. “It's nice at home. Why don't you stay and we all be happy here?”

Nori laughed, and bent to kiss Ori's forehead.

“I”m not the sort of dwarf that does well under the stone,” he said, with that voice he had when he lied about something he thought Ori wouldn't have understood. “You'll get it when you're older. But for now, all I can do is ask you to keep an eye on the others. Make sure mam laughs at least once a day, and don't forget to steal Dori's biscuits from time to time, or he'll get bored.”

“Please stay,” Ori insisted, trying to cling to Nori's clothes. But his brother just frowned and pushed him away. Gently but firmly, and with a hint of strength that said he would not be gentle again if Ori kept trying.

“I can't stay,” Nori said dryly. “Sometimes I wish I could, but I can't.” He picked up his bag again and opened the door, turning his back on Ori. “Be good, kid. See you later.”

The words made Ori flinch, and he felt tears coming to his eyes. There were the words again, and so much scarier than when Karan had said them, because Nori's life was constantly dangerous, and...

Nori was already in the street when Ori recovered from the shock, but not so far that his brother could not shout to him.

“You'd better come back!” Ori ordered into the silent street, careful to not say the words he knew where on Nori's skin. “Come back to us, and soon, and bring more of that tea Dori likes, and the candied fruits amad love, or I'll be very angry!”

Nori did not turn back, but his laughter resonated in the quiet darkness as he walked away, and Ori had to be satisfied with that.

They had not exchanged the wrong words, not fully, and it felt as if Ori had protected his brother by doing so.

Now he just had to remember to always be that careful in the future.

 


End file.
